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Top Five Stories of 2022

We've compiled our top five stories of 2022. Starting December 19, we'll be updating this page every weekday until we reach #1.  Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive these updates in your mailbox.

#1: California Legislature Prohibits State Bar from Studying Legal Access Reforms

Our reform work faced a setback this summer when the California Legislature—acting at the urging of trial lawyers who wanted to stifle competition—passed a bill preventing the State Bar of California from continuing its working groups studying regulatory reform. These groups were on their way to recommending reforms that could have set the standard for the rest of the country by prioritizing consumer needs over those of a subset of lawyers.
 
One state bar working groups was considering licensing paraprofessionals to provide services directly to consumers while another was studying the possibility of launching a regulatory sandbox like the one in Utah (see Top Story #2) that has allowed innovative businesses to provide legal services more efficiently over the past few years.
 
Even though California won’t be enacting reforms to benefit Californians anytime soon, several other states will be considering reforms in the coming months. Look for that news in our Top Five Stories of 2023!

#2: Former Utah Supreme Court Justice Deno Himonas Becomes President of Responsive Law

In March, Justice Deno Himonas stepped down from the Utah Supreme Court and became president of Responsive Law’s board of directors. Justice Himonas was the driving force behind the Utah regulatory sandbox for legal service providers, which allows innovative business models for legal service delivery to serve consumers in the state. Since its launch in 2020, companies in the sandbox have a consumer complaint rate of just one complaint per 2,123 services delivered.

#3: Federal Court Protects Non-Lawyer Advice Program from UPL Prosecution

In May, a federal court in New York granted an injunction preventing the New York Attorney General from enforcing unauthorized practice of law regulations against a program attempting to provide free legal advice to those facing debt collection proceedings. The court's ruling is a victory for people without resources to pay a lawyer and for their First Amendment rights to receive information that can help them navigate the legal system.
 
The injunction allows Upsolve, a nonprofit organization helping people with bankruptcy matters, to launch a program to train professionals to provide legal advice to those dealing with debt collectors. The New York Attorney General has appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Responsive Law is preparing a brief in support of Upsolve and the consumers who would benefit from its advice.

#4: ABA Votes To Reaffirm Its Antipathy to Consumers

On August 9, the American Bar Association House of Delegates voted unanimously to adopt Resolution 402, which reaffirms the ABA's opposition to lawyers sharing fees with non-lawyers. The practical effect of this measure is zero, but it provides further evidence of the obstinance of a lawyer cartel that sees self-regulation as a way to maintain a market advantage rather than changing to meet consumers' needs.
 
In nearly every other service industry, service providers have made their services more affordable and more widely accessible by joining with others who can provide ideas and capital to create new, innovative, scalable business models. As a result, consumers can use companies ranging from H&R Block to Care.com, making quality services more affordable and accessible in nearly every part of their life.
 
The ABA is a trade association, not a regulatory body, so its pronouncements don't change the rules governing the legal industry. But the ABA's vote provides insight into the mind of the lawyer cartel. These hidebound traditionalists are dedicated to preserving the status quo in the legal industry. They feel threatened by the idea that someone might provide legal services in a more effective way than they've been doing for decades.

#5: U.S. Continues to Provide Worse Access to Legal Help Than World's Poorest Countries

In October, the World Justice Project released its annual Rule of Law Index, ranking the commitment of 140 countries to the rule of law. Although the United States ranked 28th overall, it continued to perform among the worst in the world in access to its civil legal system.
 
In the category, “People Can Access and Afford Civil Justice, the U.S. ranked 115th out of 140 countries. Not only was it the worst among countries in the high income tier, but its ranking was near the median of countries in the low income tier, consisting of the 17 poorest countries surveyed.
 
This is not a new problem, either. The low ranking in this category for the U.S. is a repeat of its performance since the Rule of Law Index began in 2015.